How Ultimate Bots scores a match: strikes, score zones, flags and sudden death

Ultimate Bots scores a game as a series of matches, each played over rounds, and lets each team captain throw flags that change the stakes. This is how the league's own rule book describes it. The page is undated, so we cannot say whether every rule carries over unchanged to Season 2.

Points come from three sources in every round. Strikes: one point goes to whichever team lands more strikes that round, winner takes all, so a tie scores nothing. Score zone: each team can score one point independently, which means both, one or neither team can bank it. The zone activates 45 seconds into the round. Knockout: a KO is worth two points and ends that round at once, but the match continues and the remaining rounds are still played. A KO voids that round's strike count, though any score-zone hit already made before it still counts. Zone results are resolved first, then the strike count. Kicks unlock in Round 3 of every match.

The rule book's worked example shows why this matters. In a match between Red and Blue, Blue lost the strike exchange in two of three rounds yet still banked points by winning its own score zone. The page's own summary is that a match can stay close even when one team is landing more hits.

At halftime there is a separate race, which the rule book calls the K1 race. It is winner takes all, worth up to six points, and a team loses one point for every time its K1 falls over. The loser scores zero regardless of falls. The page does not define K1 in the text we read, so we do not say what it refers to.

Each captain carries three flags on the waistband, and tossing one is the call. The lime green bonus flag can be used once per game by each team and doubles a match's points for both teams. Thrown blind, before Round 1, it doubles all three rounds. Thrown informed, after Round 1, it doubles Rounds 2 and 3 only. It cannot be used in Match 8. The black flag is the captain's duel: once per game each captain may call out the rival captain for a fast corner-to-corner contest between scheduled matches, never during one. Both robots start in their corners with the score zone active and the first to reach it wins. The winner's team gains two points, the loser's team loses two. The bonus flag cannot be applied to a duel.

Two mechanics need no flag. Round 3 of Match 8, the final match, always scores double, covering strikes, zone and KO points alike. And if the game is tied after Match 8, the team that scored the most recent point picks the tiebreaker, with no coin flip. Because zone results are resolved before strike counts, the strike count normally decides who scored last. The choosing captain picks one of three formats: the K1 race, a zone duel, or a strike round where the most strikes landed wins. Whoever wins the chosen format wins the game outright, and no points are added.

Why it is worth knowing: it makes UFB a strategy game for the captains as much as a fight for the pilots. Flag timing, not only strike count, can decide a night. Season 2 opens at TwitchCon San Diego on 12 to 15 November 2026, and UFB lists four permanent teams, each on a league-assigned Unitree G1. Whether the tournament uses this rule book at that event is something we will confirm once UFB publishes a card.

Source: Ultimate Bots rule book, ultimatebots.com/rule-book, read 26 October 2026.